Читать книгу An Australian Ramble; Or, A Summer in Australia онлайн

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So far as we have travelled the Red Sea has behaved uncommonly well. On the last voyage the heat was so intense that three times the ship had to be turned in order that the passengers might have a breath of cool air. As it is, no one finds the heat overpowering, and to me it yields the same amount of enjoyment one feels in a Turkish bath after the sweating process has got into full swing. We have little walking now except in the early morning, or after dark, and no gymnastic exercise of any kind. The little ones have already lost their rosy cheeks. Sunday is well observed; one way or another there is a good deal of preaching going on. The bishop takes in hand the first-class passengers, while in the evening volunteer preachers look after the souls of the second class. There was a special service also in the steerage in the afternoon, when the singing was at any rate very hearty.

Of course we gaze with no little pleasure at the island of Perim, standing in the deep water a few miles before we reach Aden. The French would have had it, the story goes, had not the Governor of Aden, who had his suspicions aroused as the French commander, who was sent to plant there the French flag, sat drinking champagne at his hospitable board, sent two notes, one to the harbour-master ordering him to delay the coaling, and another to the commander of a gunboat to sail at once with some artillerymen for Perim. Such is the story as told by Sir Charles Dilke and other clever men; but the real fact is that it had been long before taken possession of by the old East India Company. At any rate, it is of no use to our French neighbours, now that they have lost Egypt, and that the control of the Canal has passed into English hands. Now the French have no Eastern Question. How we must all envy them!